Sunny is the founder of AsoGrove — the ASO workbench he wishes he'd had on his first three apps. Before AsoGrove he shipped consumer apps that survived their first 1,000 installs by accident; the lessons from those launches are now the source material for everything published here.
He writes about App Store optimization, indie launch strategy, and the unglamorous compounding moves that turn a small app into a 10k-MRR product. Most of what's posted is what he actually did the week before, not theory.
Posts by Sunny T.
12 posts
GrowthFrom 100 to 100,000 Installs: What Changes
Five indie founders. Five different niches. One shared bug in their listing. The composite case study of what changes between an app at 100 installs and an app at 100,000 installs, and the structural moves that close the gap. Composite reporting, no app names that can be reverse-engineered.
Build in publicBuilding AsoGrove: Month 3 Recap
Three months in to building AsoGrove in public. What shipped, what did not, what I got wrong, and what is next. Build-in-public, written with whatever numbers I had at recap time and rephrased to remove anything I could not verify.
ReviewsApp Store Reviews Aren't Social Proof. They're Keyword Fuel.
App Store reviews are not social proof. They are keyword fuel. Apple indexes review text. The right prompt at the right moment gets buyers to write the exact language your listing needs to rank for. The framework most indie devs miss.
VisualYour Icon Is Failing You: Three Frame-by-Frame Tests Indie Devs Skip
Is your icon failing you? Three frame-by-frame tests indie devs skip: the thumb test, the category-context test, and the story-arc test. None require a designer. All three catch the icon mistakes that quietly cost installs in App Store search.
LocalizationLocalization Is ASO Most Devs Miss
Why does the same indie app rank top-3 in Germany and rank 117 in the US? Localization. Apple ranks per locale. The title, subtitle, and 100-character keyword field are separate ranking fields in each of the 27 storefronts. Translating the app is not required. Localising the metadata is.
ConversionI Rewrote 40 App Store Subtitles. Here's the Template That Performed.
Forty indie app subtitles rewritten across nine categories. The six-word formula that out-converted every other shape. The two patterns that quietly killed conversion. The counterexamples that prove the rule. No fabricated stats, all composite reporting to protect anonymity.
LaunchThe Indie App Launch Checklist 2026: 40 Items, 8 Stages
'Build it and they will come' was never said by anyone who shipped on the App Store. The 40-item indie app launch checklist for 2026, organised into eight stages from validation through talk-to-50. Every item is something an indie dev has broken on a real launch.
AcquisitionApple Search Ads or ASO: What Indie Devs Should Do First
Most indie apps spend on Apple Search Ads before they have fixed their listing. The order of operations matters. ASO before ASA, every time, with one exception. The reason is structural, not philosophical: paying Apple to send buyers to a broken listing is the most expensive way to launch.
ValidationValidate Your App Idea Before You Write Code: The 7-Day Indie Sprint
Shipping fast is not a strategy. Shipping the right thing is. The 7-day validation sprint that pressure-tests an app idea against real App Store demand, real competitors, and the gap between 1-star and 5-star reviews before you write a line of code.